Hey Dana Jane

Tag: Poetry

  • The Wanderer’s Lament

    Through fog-bound streets of ashen hue,
    Where gas lamps flicker, cold and few,
    I tread a path both dim and wide,
    Yet find no beacon at my side.

    The cobbled way, it twists and turns,
    Each corner mocks, each lantern burns—
    Yet never bright enough to show
    The place from whence I used to know.

    Oh, time! Thou art a fickle guide,
    With fleeting whispers, cast aside.
    Once, fortune’s hand did point me true,
    But now I chase the wind and rue.

    My purpose, lost to swirling mist,
    A name once held, now but a wisp.
    The echoes call in hollow tone,
    Yet every voice is not my own.

    I beg the night to yield its veil,
    To show some truth behind the tale—
    But fate, it grins, it turns, it jeers,
    And leaves me wandering with my fears.

    So on I roam, through gloom and doubt,
    Till fate or mercy leads me out.
    Yet should I walk these streets so grim,
    Perchance I’ll find myself within.

    -DJT

  • The Fragile Things We Nurture

    The dream lingered with me long after I woke, its weight pressing against my chest like the tiny, fragile body of the starving puppy I had cradled in my sleep. In the dream, I found it—weak, trembling, on the edge of life—somewhere within the familiar walls of my home. Its ribs jutted out beneath a matted coat, its eyes dull with exhaustion, but even in its desperate state, it had looked at me with trust. I couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t turn away. So, I scooped it up, wrapping it in warmth, offering it food, water, comfort. Slowly, it revived. Day by day, it grew stronger under my care, its tail beginning to wag, its eyes regaining their light. Love, patience, and tenderness brought it back from the brink.

    When I woke, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the dream meant something more. A quick search for dream analysis suggested that the puppy symbolized something—or someone—in my life that needed care and nurturing. And suddenly, it made sense.

    The night before, I had sat in the sterile, beeping quiet of a hospital room, watching my mother battle against the cruel complications of cancer. I had held her hand, spoken to her in gentle tones, adjusted her blanket when she shivered. She was the one now so fragile, so weak, caught between exhaustion and survival. And I, helpless in so many ways, could only offer my presence, my love, my care.

    Maybe my subconscious was telling me what I already knew deep down: that this season of my life is about giving—of patience, of strength, of love—no matter how heavy it feels. And just like in the dream, all I can do is nurture, tend, and hope that, somehow, it will be enough.

  • The Mirror of Grief

    The aim is not to untangle the past,
    to pull each thread and weave a new story,
    not to mend the frayed edges of memory
    with needles of reason or spools of time.
    No, the past is not clay,
    and we are not potters shaping its hardened form.

    It is the weight we carry,
    pressed into the soft earth of our becoming,
    an indelible signature of what was.
    We do not correct the rain for falling,
    nor the storm for its fury.

    Instead, therapy is the mirror held close,
    its surface dark and reflective,
    daring us to meet the gaze of our own ghosts,
    to sit in the company of sorrow
    and call each shadow by its name.

    Here, grief blooms like a strange flower,
    its petals heavy with the dew of acknowledgment.
    We do not prune it; we let it grow,
    wild and tangled in the garden of our truths,
    until the roots touch what has been buried.

    This is not the work of undoing,
    but the slow art of reckoning—
    to confront the echoes
    and let them linger,
    to touch the edges of pain
    and know it as ours.

    Only then, with the past unearthed but unaltered,
    do we breathe in the ache,
    let it fill our lungs like smoke
    until it fades into air,
    leaving us not lighter,
    but freer.

    -DJT